


Jagers Don't Cry

by Pythonmelon



Category: Girl Genius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5478764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pythonmelon/pseuds/Pythonmelon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to keep up a facade of joy when time passed has been so bleak</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jagers Don't Cry

Ognian was not the sort to cry over trivial things, not often. But this was not a trivial thing, and it would last just as long as he needed it to. The jaeger wiped his eyes with a rough coat sleeve, replacing tears with a faint smudge of dirt on his pale cheek. He trudged slowly down the hall, halberd dragging, claws scraping slowly and rhythmically like a convict’s ball and chain on the metal grate floor. The sound echoed, rumbling through the empty caverns of the airship’s secluded rooms.  
For the most part the army of monsters was on their own ship, piloted by a jaeger, staffed by a human food and sanitation team only, save for a few mechanics who moved from ship to ship. They were glad from the privacy. They didn’t have to act stupid and jovial for the humans this way. There was more than enough reason not to.  
The ship still had a new smell, not yet having begun to absorb its occupants’ copious smell of monsterhood, blood, and roughhousing. The majority did not like it. But they needed the baron’s protection more than he would ever need their services, really. Not since the boys were gone.   
It had been almost two years- more than enough time for any small units of mostly younger jaegers to be slaughtered by vengeful townspeople. Time enough for old Klaus to begin taking control of Europa, several provinces and villages at a time. But not time enough for Oggie to recover.   
He told himself repeatedly that he was too old for this, at almost three hundred. Monsters both half and twice is age had gathered themselves and returned to normal, even quasi-comfortable and much more pampered than they once had been lives in the posh and, dare he say, boring flying castle. Despite these internal scoldings, efforts to retain his toothy grin sometimes failed him.   
Ognian opened the door to his room, shared with his two closest partners, propped his weapon in the corner, and fell face-first onto the mattress of his bed. He dug his claws into the pillow, using it to muffle a guttural sob that tore itself free not seconds after the door was kicked shut. He gasped, biting the pillow, and choked out another low cry. They had been discussing the possibilities again, that this was perhaps the end of the Heterodynes and that their loyalty was no longer valid. It was a grim topic that made him sick to his stomach and upset. He had had to leave the table where the others were drinking, complaining of sudden sleepiness (He did not sleep much as it were, he was too full of energy, and he did appear physically and mentally drained before going.) To come here and wallow in the fact that their beloved family, his beloved masters, could be gone forever.   
He had never had a scare like this, and it severely injured the intensely feeling monster. He was always the one who released pent up feelings at the deaths of Heterodynes, the one who disappeared for hours when one died. But never like this. Never such lingering anxiety and upset, that brought him to his knees every few months when the idea came wandering back into his thick skull. He moaned softly, feeling the material grow wet with tears he struggled to control.  
Then, softly, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. “Oggie? Iz hyu alright?”   
He jumped, recoiling from the touch and rubbing at his pink, faintly freckled cheeks furiously in angry embarrassment, making eye contact with Dimo. “Hy iz fine.” But his voice hitched, making him feel small and childish despite being taller than the other jaeger on his bedside. “Hy iz fine.” He snapped.   
Maxim pulled his hands from his pockets, approaching from where he had been waiting in the doorway. “Dot conversation, eet bothered hyu, didn’t it?”   
“No.” Oggie turned his head away, stifling a groan on anger and forcing tears back.   
Both tilted their heads at him sympathetically. “Oggie, dun do dot, hyu’ll make hyuself sick.” Maxim sighed. “Ve know how upset hyu get. But ve vill find der boyz, or perhaps vun had a keed, dot ve ken find? Remember takink care of der sveet children.” He comforted.   
The tan monster did feel sick, but furious at showing so much weakness to his closest friends. He was supposed to be funny, and caring, but unfeeling beyond that. Jaegers were not supposed to cry. “Hy am not cryink! Hy got zum… zum soap in my eyes!”   
Dimo frowned at him. “Oggie, hyu und me both know dots a beeg fat lie.”   
He muttered toxically. “Vas vorth a try.” Before turning back to them, waiting to be berated, leaning his head against the wall.   
They both knew good and well that Oggie got like this, they had known for years and let him recover on his own. But this upset over the disappearance was really hurting him, it was hurting them all. The oldest reached forward slightly timidly to pet his shoulder. “Ve iz not clenks hyu know. Und hyu iz not made ov stone. Iz hokay to be scared.” He turned his eyes towards the purple of the trio. “Maxim is scared out ov hiz vits.”   
At first the youngest started to protest, but caught his words and swallowed them back down. For Oggie. “Ho yez.” Which, wasn’t a lie. He just wasn’t one for crying this long afterwards. He drank and partied to forget.   
“Iz… hokay… to be scared.” Ognian repeated, turning the words over on his tongue as if fascinated by their clarity.   
“Zo long as hyu dun let it change who hyu are.” Dimo completed the thought with a smile just wise enough for his years.   
“Und hyu iz no coward.” Maxim interjected, smiling, and rested on the bed beside Ognian too. “Hyu iz vun ov der best fighters ve know, more loyal to der family den anyvun.”  
“Yez.” He exhaled, sitting up straight, allowing the other jaeger’s hands to find his shoulders, Maxim’s stroking comfortingly and Dimo’s a solid weight to latch onto. “Hy suppoze.”   
“Now.” The green monster stood with a grunt and a grin. “Hyu iz goot and cleared op. Lt’s go get anodder beer before de odders gets to thinking too hard. Hy dun vant efferyvun to haff headaches tryink to figure out vhat ve’re up to vhen ve get back.” And they led Oggie, smiling confidently, back to his fellows.


End file.
